Vijay, the Tamil actor who had moved the Madras High Court seeking entry tax exemption for his imported car, has now paid the tax in full with a sum of Rs 40 lakh on Tuesday, according to Times of India.
The actor had filed a plea in 2012 seeking exemption from entry tax for his Rolls Royce Ghost car, which was imported from England.
When the plea came up for hearing on July 13 this year, Justice SM Subramaniam dismissed it and directed Vijay to pay the entry tax within two weeks. The judge also imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the actor, to be paid to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Covid-19 Public Relief Fund.
In his order, the judge berated the actor in strong words for filing such a plea and stated that filing a writ petition for avoiding payment of tax can “never be appreciated.”
“Tax evasion is to be construed as an anti-national habit, attitude and mindset and is unconstitutional,” he further observed.
Following this, on July 20, Vijay filed a counter-petition against the strongly-worded order. The actor’s counsel Senior Advocate Vijay Narayan told the court that Vijay was only challenging the “unjust and derogatory” remarks made by the judge and not the entry tax demand.
The Madras High Court ruled in favour of the actor on July 27 and stayed the highly-critical order passed by Justice Subramaniam, including the Rs 1 lakh fine.
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The division bench headed by Justices M Duraiswamy and R Hemalatha directed Vijay to pay the balance 80% of the tax amount within a week of the issue of the demand challan by the tax department. The actor had previously paid 20% of the tax amount in 2012.
The division bench also directed the Commercial Tax department to raise the challan within a week in response to the advocate’s request for the same citing that the actor does not want the issue “to be hanging for long.”
With Vijay’s payment of Rs 40 lakh on Tuesday, the entry tax amount for the car has now been paid in full.